


While My Guitar Gently Weeps

by hopeless_eccentric



Series: (Free! That's right! Free!) Penumbra Commissions [28]
Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Communication, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Guitars, Introspection, Junoverse | Juno Steel Universe, Other, Tenderness, almost. it's like a character study plus cuddling, essentially a look at how nureyev feels about a certain familiar melody, theres just. a lot of softness in this one. feels good, theyre in love dammit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:01:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28040550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hopeless_eccentric/pseuds/hopeless_eccentric
Summary: The melody smelled like the wafting scent of flowers from somewhere near and tasted like cool, spring air upon his tongue. Nureyev has a feeling it would sound best with birdsong and the faint, distant buzz of a public square. The melody was as sweet as it was melancholic, a taste of nostalgia, bottled and fermented and distilled to just the right potency to make his chest ache and his heart stop dead in its tracks.“Juno,” he began.“When you looked in my head, what did you see?”(Free!) Commission for an anon on tumblr!!
Relationships: Peter Nureyev/Juno Steel
Series: (Free! That's right! Free!) Penumbra Commissions [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1921492
Comments: 30
Kudos: 137





	While My Guitar Gently Weeps

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all!!! another commission!! i really like this one ngl
> 
> Content warnings for blood mention

As much as Nureyev first fell for Juno’s wit and snark and, if he was being honest with himself, ass, he had to admit that Juno’s idiosyncrasies did a number on his heartstrings as well.

When Juno so much as sighed a certain way, Nureyev felt as if some unseen hand had reached into an instrument at the center of his chest and plucked out a melody, fingers dancing upon breathless frets while the chords warmed and softened and spread from his breastbone down his ribs and up into his shoulders and arms. The sensation was pleasant, though Peter’s only complaint was how frequently that melody bloomed, and how often without warning.

Living with Juno, not just within the same ship, but so often sharing a bed, meant Nureyev had the blessing of seeing all those idiosyncrasies and feeling that sweet bloom within his chest every time. 

On those days that were slow enough that he could, he would take pause in the morning to worship the expanse of Juno’s brow and the line of his cheek. He would watch with reverent eyes as Juno deliberated over cereals with the stance and expression with which he had regarded Croesus Kanagawa’s murder. He would be the only member of the crew who didn’t absolutely abhor the sound of Juno’s humming.

Apparently, he had never been the musical type back at his former profession. Rita had certainly made that clear when complaining that Juno never made this much noise at the office, unless he was pacing and giving out frustrated groans like alms. Nureyev treasured that image as well.

Regardless of the newness of the habit, Peter appreciated it nonetheless. 

In a way, it seemed Juno had let out a shaky breath. If he dressed anything less than casual, it was because he wanted his reflection to look like that, rather than an expectation that he bring a certain image of himself to work. As time went on, his showers ran longer and his shape in bed turned from a curled in ball to a grabbing squid of a cuddler who liked to make Nureyev’s life hell whenever he tried to get up and go to the bathroom. Peter doubted he was any better. 

With Juno letting himself breathe, it felt, in a way, that Nureyev could too. He could allow himself to slow down or even pause to appreciate the strange and wonderful position in which he had found himself. He and Juno were cultivating something together the shape of which Nureyev had never had the blessing to see before. 

Love, real, functional love, required labor. Seeing Juno breathe, comfortable in himself enough to let a melodious thought nearly slip past his lips, felt like plucking the sweet fruits of that labor.

“Juno,” Nureyev found himself asking one evening after Juno spent several minutes agonizing over the bridge of a song he couldn’t quite seem to remember. “That sounds almost familiar.”

Juno froze, his lotion still halfway to his face. Even with the thin layer of mist coating the mirror, his reflection was clearly that of a rabbit in headlights.

“Sorry,” he sputtered out. “I’ll quit it, if you want.”

“Dear,” Nureyev smiled from the doorway, glad his robe gave him an excuse to drape himself over Juno’s shoulders without worrying about the moisture. “Why would I ever want you to do such a thing? You have lovely pitch.”

Juno snorted.

“Sap,” he accused.

Nureyev, feeling no need to rebuke Juno’s claim, merely pressed a kiss to his pulse point and relished in the feeling of Juno’s throat buzzing under his lips, not with a melody, but rather, the gentle hum that walked hand and hand with the relaxing of his shoulders and slackening of his jaw.

“Truly, I am curious as to what that melody was,” Nureyev pressed after a moment.

“I’d tell you if I knew,” Juno sighed.

Before Nureyev could open his mouth to speak, it fell open with offense as Juno pulled away to wipe the mirror.

Nureyev caught his own eye in the reflection and nearly laughed at so miffed a look in response to merely being denied a hug. He laughed in full when Juno gave him a glare and made a gesture for Peter to return to his former position.

“Now, not to accuse you of hypocrisy—“

“Shut up and snuggle with me,” Juno huffed. 

“Standing up?”

“Yeah, standing up, do I look like I’ve finished my goddamn skincare yet?” Juno tried and failed to say with any malice in his voice. 

“Whatever you say, dear,” Peter chuckled, burying his face into Juno’s shoulder once more. 

“I can’t believe it,” Juno murmured to his own reflection. “Of all the guys in the universe, I got stuck with an octopus.”

To make a point, Nureyev wrapped him a little tighter in his arms and shot his reflection a glare.

“A very cute octopus,” Juno amended.

“I’m not cute,” Nureyev insisted, burying his head into Juno’s neck at such an angle that would make the top of his head incredibly kissable and sighing pleasantly when Juno did so.

“Keep telling yourself that,” Juno snorted.

They stood in front of the mirror as such for some while, Nureyev adjusting and readjusting to see if there was any way to make them closer while Juno finished the last of his skincare routine, that strange and familiar melody blooming its way back from his throat.

Nureyev still couldn’t put a name to the notes, even as Juno parted with him to hang up the towel, put on a set of pajamas that definitely weren’t his, and sneak up on Peter to surprise him in carrying him to bed bridal style. That strange, soothing song still sighed its way through the air even when Nureyev laid his head upon Juno’s chest and prayed sleep would come to neither of them, for that meant the moment would have to end.

With his ear atop Juno’s breastbone, the melody buzzed from just below. If Nureyev closed his eyes and listened, the tempo almost matched the steady pulsing of his heart.

It seemed Juno had almost remembered the bridge, but that was enough for Peter. Between the gentle vibrations beneath his ear and the steady rise and fall of Juno’s chest, Nureyev was shocked he hadn’t already drifted off to sleep. The warmth of the bedsheets and the familiar smell of his companion’s shampoo made sleep seem even more compelling, even if he wanted nothing more than to save the moment forever like a ship in a bottle. 

The melody smelled like the wafting scent of flowers from somewhere near and tasted like cool, spring air upon his tongue. Nureyev has a feeling it would sound best with birdsong and the faint, distant buzz of a public square. The melody was as sweet as it was melancholic, a taste of nostalgia, bottled and fermented and distilled to just the right potency to make his chest ache and his heart stop dead in its tracks.

“Juno,” he breathed.

“Are you okay?” Juno asked, the pausing of his hand in Nureyev’s hair enough to almost make him regret speaking. 

“In that Martian tomb,” he began, a voice that had been soft and sweet going shaky and slow. “When you looked in my head, what did you see?”

Juno palpably tensed beneath him. As much as Nureyev still desired an answer, he knew it far before it could ever leave Juno’s lips.

“Brahma,” Juno said slowly. “And why you left.”

Nureyev grimaced, the cold of anxiety and the warm glow of appreciation for that lovely, impossible lady who held him competing for space within his chest. When he didn’t reply, Juno moved one hand down to his back, as if a gentle line drawn up and down the arc of his spine could somehow heal or address that unspoken behemoth that ate at the back of his mind.

“I’m sorry you had to go through any of that,” Juno added before Nureyev could open his mouth to interrogate any one of the sharp-toothed questions rending at his brain.

“Oh,” was all Peter could say.

“I won’t ever hum it again, if you want.”

Nureyev shook his head. 

He wanted to open his mouth and find some neat and clever manner to say that in a way, the song had been an ode to a home he had never known and a family he had never found, and yet, tasted so much sweeter when passing through the lips of the lady who had become both. He wanted to find some way to weave into words the burning behind his eyes that he resolutely swallowed down. He wanted to be enough of a wordsmith to craft some chain of phrases that might almost comprise the strange and pleasant twinge the lilting of that guitar gave him, as if his own tendons were being plucked and strummed until he himself buzzed, an instrument of a melody he had known but once.

Instead, he sighed and pulled Juno a little closer.

“I like it from you,” he decided to say.

“Okay,” Juno smiled, and pressed one last kiss into the top of Nureyev’s head as he let the melody murmur past his lips once more.

Two decades ago, he had sobbed his makeup off in a bathroom stall until the public restroom was clear enough that he could scrub the blood off his hands into the sink. The excitement of a new and free life had crumpled as fast as it came, and he could hardly allow himself an uninterrupted moment to take a deep breath before an all too familiar voice at the back of his head chastised him for breaking another basic rule of thieving.

Two years ago, that sweet mourning of the guitar had filled his head while he held Juno’s face in his hands, watching as he twitched and grimaced and bled and bled and bled.

In the present, he let out a sigh.

Peter Nureyev had been a thief without a name until he’d sold it cheap for a kiss that tasted like whiskey and almost felt like belonging. He used to regret that.

Peter Nureyev had been a thief without a home until he made one, day by day and side by side with Juno Steel.

Juno paused in his humming to yawn, though his hand still slid up and down Nureyev’s back, as gentle and sweet as the quiet melody that began to drift off to sleep. Before Peter could be pulled into a sympathetic chord of rest, he was struck with the strange thought that the path of Juno’s hand felt as much like a brush as it did a strum.

**Author's Note:**

> We did it folks!! more snuggling!!!!
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!! Make sure to SMASH that kudos button and leave a comment down below!!
> 
> Check me out on tumblr @hopeless-eccentric or on twitter @withane22 !!


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